


The Boogey Man

by HostisHumaniGeneris



Category: Halloween Movies - All Media Types
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Gen, Murder, Psychological Trauma, Serial Killers, Survivor Guilt, Trick or Treat: Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-07-17 07:23:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16090814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostisHumaniGeneris/pseuds/HostisHumaniGeneris
Summary: Two months after the Haddonfield Murders, Laurie Strode meets Doctor Loomis to discuss processing the situation and reflect on just what MIchael Myers is.





	The Boogey Man

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PumpkinKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinKing/gifts).



He wasn’t some deformed monster.  He wasn’t the devil, wasn’t the boogey man.  He was just a man in a Halloween mask.

Laurie had spent the past month telling herself that.  He killed Annie, Lynda, and Bob.  He was just a psycho killer.  Before that night, he was just a bad bit of local history—the creepy little boy who hacked his older sister to death with a kitchen knife. 

She kept telling herself that over and over, trying to put out the other things.  How a man who spent most of his childhood and his entire adulthood managed to drive a stolen car with no apparent problems.  How he managed to steal and move his sister’s tombstone across the town by himself.  How she stabbed him and he got up, how he shrugged off getting wire hanger shoved in his eye.  How he got up after the old man shot him six times.

“Laurie?” Doctor Loomis asked, getting her attention again.

She shuddered.  Glanced up from his coffee to make eye contact with him again.   She shook her head and swallowed.  “I’m sorry, Doctor, I’ve been… getting lost in thought a lot lately.”

“I know, I know.” He nodded wearily.  If she was trying to convince herself that Michael Myers was a man, and not a monster, then meeting with Doctor Loomis over the past two months had been a very, very bad idea. She shot a glance at the falling snow on outside the window, the tacky red and white Santa and colored lights.

* * *

Doctor Loomis had given up the thought of Michael as a person long ago, had stopped trying to fix whatever was broken in his head and instead tried to keep him locked up.  Three months ago, she would’ve thought that attitude barbaric for a doctor to have towards his patient… she’d read up he’d been majorly burned out, dismissive of many patients.  Four hours a day for fifteen years with Michael Myers did that to a man.

The State of Illinois had not listened to him.  They thought Michael was catatonic, low-risk.

Now, everybody knew otherwise.  Loomis was right.

She’d been at the hearing.  The district attorney had been a firebrand, asserting that Michael was too fundamentally broken to ever rejoin society, he had to be locked up.  The public defender did very little, probably viewing Michael being back in the asylum best for his client.  Nobody in the room said a word in disagreement.  Least of all Michael, who sat stock still, apparently a harmless catatonic.  When called as based on his personal knowledge of the defendant, Loomis had asserted Michael wasn’t necessarily insane, he was evil.

That was Samuel Loomis, MD's professional opinion.

* * *

“I’ve been thinking… he’s going to do this again.” Laurie asked, adding cream to her coffee and watching the slow white spiral blend with the darkness.

Loomis smiled sadly, and said.  “We’ll keep him locked up this time.  No one can deny the threat he poses now.”

“You think it’s only a matter of time, don’t you?” Laurie asked, looking him in the eye. 

The fake smile faltered, and Doctor Loomis nodded.

* * *

At the hearing, Myers said nothing in his defense.  He showed no discomfort from the repeated gunshot wounds he had received.  He didn’t thrash in his chains.  He just sat and stared.  He did that while the forensic examiner went over the murders—Jacob Phelps, owner/operator of Phelps garage was beaten to death, apparently for the clothing he was wearing.  He was the only murder that any shred of motive could be found—insofar as overalls counted for a motive.

Annie Brackett died of exsanguination after her throat was cut.  Her body had been posed with Judith Myer’s tombstone post-mortem—Sheriff Brackett had to leave the room after that.

Robert Simms had bruising on the neck consistent with strangulation, but the cause of his death was impalement—knife had been driven through in into the door hard enough to pin his body off the floor.

Lynda Van Der Klock was strangled with a telephone wire.  Laurie broke down at that—she had heard her best friend _die_ and laughed it off as a lewd joke. 

* * *

“You still have nightmares?” Doctor Loomis asked.  A statement framed as a question. 

Laurie nodded.  “I don’t think I’ll never not have them, Doctor.”

“I have them too, sometimes.” He replied.  He’d treated Michael for fifteen years, and the first time he’d seen the man move of his own volition was when he shot him while he was trying to kill Laurie.  Loomis had come to visit her in the hospital the next morning, to discuss whether or not she was okay, to apologize for not being able to make them listen, and to offer any help he could going forward. 

“You know, it’s funny… not ha-ha, just weird…” Laurie said, pausing and draining her cup of coffee while Loomis stared at her, the same tired expression he always wore on his face.  “The nightmares are usually not about that night.”

“What are they about then?”

* * *

Laurie was the last witness called. 

To everyone else, that stare Michael gave as he sat in his chair, motionless and unblinking was just a crazy person staring into space.  He might not’ve been registering what was going on around him at all.  The DA made her tell her story in her own words.

Michael didn’t react when she talked about stabbing him with a knitting needle, or how that didn’t stop him.  He didn’t react when she recounted him slashing at her, or trapping her in a closet.  Despite the fact his eye wasn’t working right anymore, he did nothing when she talked about jabbing a wire hanger into his eye.

He might’ve twitched when she recounted how the night ended.  How he would’ve strangled the life out of her, but stopped when he pulled the mask off his face.  She couldn’t really be sure if he did twitch or it was her mind playing tricks on her.

But it didn’t matter.  She looked at him when she could bear it, look at those blank eyes, one damaged and blind, staring at her.  They weren’t uncomprehending, they weren’t crazy.  They _knew_.

Laurie looked at Michael Myers, and she knew too.

Doctor Loomis had been right all along.

* * *

“Laurie.” Doctor Loomis said, shifting uncomfortably.  “If you’re looking for peace of mind, I think that rather than meeting in diners to talk, a clinical setting would be best.”

“I’m not crazy, Doc.” She wasn’t, at least she was no more crazy than he had been when he had said Michael was dangerous.

“I know that.” Loomis nodded, placatingly.  “But trauma, like the kind you were subjected to, can stick with a person.  Needing help is a perfectly normal thing, but again, it would be better to see in a formal setting.”

“I don’t want you to be my shrink, Doctor.” Laurie said.  They both knew evil was very, very real, and it would eventually find its way back.  “No offense.”

“None taken.” Doctor Loomis nodded.  “I must admit, my specialty is the criminally insane.  You would be better served with a referral to an outpatient…”

“…I don’t want help with that, doctor.” Laurie interrupted.  Loomis studied her, but before he could say another word, she said.  “We both know he’ll get out again, and he’ll come back here again.  Don’t we?”

Loomis nodded.

“I don’t want to spend the rest of my life scared, Doctor Loomis.” Laurie said, leaning back as the waitress came to refill her mug.  Her parents needed almost no convincing to put bars on the windows and get heavier locks for the doors.  But there was so much still she needed to be able to do for herself before she could relax.  “But I won’t get that from counseling.  I’ll get that from being able to protect myself and those around me.”

The old man sadly smiled, before looking up at her again.  “That would be a good idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> Just to be very clear, I'm immensely hyped for the new film, probably moreso than it merits. I liked Jamie Lee Curtis's portrayal in the trailers as a paranoid survivalist who is somewhat itching for a chance to finally kill Michael, and I wanted to explore just how that would happen. 
> 
> Since this won't be revealed until after the new film comes out, I apologize if it's completely rendered noncanon by what we see.


End file.
